Mantel Group adds three new speciality consulting brands

Technology consultancy Mantel Group is launching three new brands, Pretzel Lab, Azenix and Cuusoo, growing its team by almost one third and nearly doubling its existing portfolio of companies.

Launching this month under chief executive Jane Nguyen, Pretzel Lab is branching from Mantel’s existing digital transformation company, DigIO.

Pretzel Lab applies design thinking models and uses big tech to solve a range of business problems. They will be hiring 15-20 people this year to support the current team of seven.

“Having incubated and worked inside of DigIO, the understanding of Mantel Group's principles and the culture it drives makes the launch of Pretzel Lab an exciting journey to embark upon. It is that culture and the amazing team that has set us up for great success,” Nguyen said.

Early April will see the launch of Azenix, a dedicated Microsoft partner providing a cloud offering and .NET development capabilities and giving Mantel a specialist business for each of the leading cloud providers. 

Azenix has appointed Linda Connolly as chief executive, who joined Mantel Group over 18 months ago having worked in business and technology consulting for over 14 years. Azenix is currently recruiting a CTO and will be employing upwards of 40 people before the end of the 2021 calendar year.

Also launching in Q2 is Cuusoo, which will support businesses in leveraging Databricks to use one platform to store and manage all their data for analytics workloads. Cuusoo is set to appoint a CEO this month and be looking to fill around 20 roles during 2021.

Mantel chief executive Con Mouzouris said the new companies would strengthen Mantel Group’s unique ‘house of brands’ approach.

“Organisations today don’t have $30-50 million budgets to hand over to a one-stop shop," he said. "Clients turn to specialist consultancies to fill gaps in their capabilities or to solve a particular business problem. Our unique ‘house of brands’ approach means that we can be agile alongside our clients with specific solutions while collaborating effectively and adding value across brands when a client needs it.

“We are very excited to welcome Pretzel Lab, Azenix and Cuusoo to the fold and be able to offer multiple solutions across the technology spectrum. Each brand will have its own strategy and style of how they go to market, but will be united by Mantel Group’s strong principles and will interact closely with each other. We are a proud local business and this is a very exciting time as we grow our footprint and team across Australia and New Zealand.”